A Delightful Daizie Finish At Last!

Well it is finished. Finished! Complete! At last! I really don't have much more to say than YAHHH! I thought that I had started this one back in 2007, but reading back on my blog to double check I found this first post here which is dated January 2007 and that says the 40 daize blocks in the photo haven't seen the light of day since June 2005. I didn't start blogging till 2006! So I'm going to say that this quilt was started in June 2005 and finished in August 2013. Far out, that is a long time.....

 Behind every quilter is a paitent and tolerant loving husband. Someone to hold the quilt up at the end of the day for you. Thank you Daz!

 I sent this away to be professionally quilted at KoolKat Quilting. Its an all over meander in a pale green, its very subtle.

We went out to take these photos in a friends front yard out of town. Awesome boab in the background. The quilt is now on our bed, its taken eight years to get there! I am just very happy it is complete, well except for the label!

WIP Wednesday - Yellow Binding.

Well this quilt was sitting at the Post Office waiting paitently when we returned from the Gibb. I have finally trimmed it, sewn together two plus metres of yellow binding and sewed it on! Now just to finish sewing it down..... the end is soooo close!

Nearly at the Finish Line!

Well after some sewing bursts I have finally, finally, finally finished this quilt top! In my last post I thought it would be okay with just one more row, but no, of course that would have been to close to the finish line. It needed another row on the other side. So 20 more daizie blocks later.....

Its huge. It measures 78 by 88 inches. It has been trimmed. It has been ironed. It is currently all folded ready for me to mail off to the LAQ tomorrow! I know I am not at the finish line yet, not till the binding is sewn down. Hopefully that won't take an another 6 years to accomplish like this has. How embarrasing to write that. Is that the longest WIP ever? 2007 till now?

Return of the Daizy Quilt.

 

Those who have been reading this blog for awhile may remember this quilt. Its been nearly two years since it has made an appearance on this blog and I am embarrassed to admit it, but I did hope to have this quilt finished by the end of 2010! Hahahahahaha! But this afternoon I did recieve an email that inspired me to pull it out of the WIP stash and actally finish it. Kathy from Kool Kat Quilting has an end of financial year special on edge to edge quilting.... I threw the quilt top over our bed to realize that it needs just another row length ways for it to fit nicely.

I took out the green draw from the stash, it is looking vey empty since the green squares quilt and the green windows quilt. (My Kona's are kept elsewhere, if the green's were included in here it would be buldging!) But I think I'll have enough to make the extra ten blocks needed.

Block number one unironed.....

And block number two. It took me an hour to do these too. A lot of measuring and remeasuring and ironing after each seam before slashing and resewing. If I had then all cut I think I could get three or four sewn an hour? The clock is ticking.....

Back to the Sewing?

I have been feeling lately like I am not getting any sewing done. I have been thinking about what is suddenly different in my life eating up all my sewing time and I can't think of anything besides the usual work/household duties/parenting things I do! It has taken me 12 days to sew this last strip on! It has sat on my ironing board half cut for all that time!! That is just plain embarrassing. It measures 60 x 86 inches. I think I am going to get the backing fabric from here. But anyway, it is now sewn on and folded back up while I decided the next stage.... I think my earlier hope for finishing this by the end of 2010 is a dream!

The Last 7 Daizy Blocks!

Allow me to indulge myself with posting individual photos of each daize block rather than photographing them all together. These are the last 7 blocks required to make up the last row of this quilt. I really, really, really would like this one finished by the end of the year.....

Daizie Quilt Progress.....

I have sewn all the strips together. It's looking like this.... I'm happy with it but not ecstatic. I think it needs another row on the height as then it will sit perfectly over the pillows. And the border, it needs something.... something yellow. I'm folding it back up and putting it in the later pile till inspiration hits me.

And this is all the scraps from the green when trimmed down to 9 inches.

Strips of Daizies.

A weekend of sewing has seen me finish the last 6 daizie blocks needed. I was a bit random, going for a scrap of fabric if it was the right measurements rather than cutting up something new.

Then I got the girls to cut up little squares of fabric and write on each 1A, 1B, 1C etc all the way to 1G and then all the way up to 9A to 9G. And then cracking the quilt Mother whip louder, I got them to help me pin a square on each block so when sewing them together I wouldn't get the order mixed it! Those are he white things pinned to some of the blocks in the photo. Once that was done, I sliced the sides of each block to bring it down to 9 inches wide. I didn't slice the whole block to size as I am always paranoid that the stitches will come undone before I get around to sewing them. But I got into a rhythm and got all 9 rows sewed together, here they are hanging over the sewing room door, ready to be all sewn together!

Thursday's Mail.

I knew I wouldn't get anything quilt related for my birthday unless I brought it for myself, so I ordered these from the Book Depositry. Great site. They arrived on Thursday! I have been eyeing these titles off for awhile, my birthday was just an excuse. Even though I love doing wonky blocks, something about the patterns in Aunt Millie's garden just make me melt. I'm hoping to get a partner in the upcoming Flickr DQS9 who would like a mini quilt like this, to give me the excuse of making one!

I have finished 4 more daizie blocks. So now I only have 6 to go.

Back to the Daizies....

Well seeing as though the Round Robin is no longer a WIP, its time to see what else I can finish off that has been loitering around the sewing room. I sooooooo want to finish this quilt! It has been my New Years Resolution for the last two years, think it is time to just stop talking about it and do it! I have taken all the blocks out and laid them on the bed. I need 12 more blocks to make the quilt top, that will make it 7 blocks by 9. After seeing this photo though I have decided that light aqua weird green, third up on the right? Its out!! There are two blocks with that background, so 2 more to make to replace them! I have no idea what I am going to do with the border. Smaller daizies? Just a wonky yellow wedge? Unsure, I'll just sew all this together and see.



These are based on Jan Mullens pattern available here. I have sort of tweaked it a bit. Her's were just one colour petals, but I adapted these to make it two colours.


So 5 sewn and 9 to go. Funny how your tastes change over the years. I'd be reluctant to use this green check in a new project now but seeing as though there are a few green check blocks already, thought I'd add it in. I'm trying to use up scraps of pink and orange as I go.

The latest 6 blocks

Here’s the last 6 blocks which I finished yesterday, takes the tally to 48. Yahh! Am leaning towards the bottom design more, but Jill made an interesting point about quilt hogs in bed, Daz does hog the blankets so maybe the other design is the way to go? I am going to do the middle bit as that is the same in each and then decide.

Now colours for the blocks framing boarder. I’m thinking yellow, Daz isn’t so enthaustic but can’t come up with a suggestion so I think its yellow. Add a bit of zing! The square blocks though in each corner….. purple or red? They’ll only be 1 inch square. When I lay all this out on our bed to see how the yellow would look, I noticed that 3 blocks just don’t look right. Two have the wrong shade of green, a pale blue/green (the one full one bottom right hand corner in below's photo) and a green plaid print. Erk! What was I thinking? So have pulled these three out and will make another three blocks to replace them. Maybe by then I will have decided on the corner colour.

Couldn't sleep last night.

Couldn't sleep last night, so did these pattern designs on the computer for my daizee quilt. Am undecided... Ignore the colours totally. The second one would sit nicely on top of our bed, where as the top one would hang down the sides a bit. I'd have to find a nice fabric for the border, oh any excuse to shop for more fabric!

Think I'll go a tape measure and see what would look better size wise on our bed. Any thoughts or opinions from anyone out there in cyber blog land welcome! AJ? Ad? Jill?? :)

Work In Progress - Week 4

This weeks WIP, I dragged out of the top of the laundry cuboard, it hasn't seen the light of day since June 2005 I think! I am determined to finish it this year. As I was flicking through the blocks I was thinking ewwwww, I don't like this anymore! Yucky colours! And was pondering what I could turn it into instead. But then as I lay all the blocks out on our bed for the photo it started to grab me again. It works better whne the blocks are all together rather than indiviually. So I think I will continue and finish it. Definately getting this one professionally quilted though! Imagine trying to shove this under my machine to quilt! I'll have to work it out, but I think I need to do either 2 or 3 more rows, so either 14 or 21 more blocks.

Its based on Jan Mullen's Daizee pattern, although her design the daisy petals are just one colour. I decided to be a bit tricky and make the petals two colours, by having two rectangles instead of a square to cut. Just to add more colour to the design. These blocks will be 8 inches when I cut them down. This one is actually for our bed! Don't think I'll do it the full queen size though, just have it sit on top.

I had to stand on my bedside table to take this shot too!

And a special welcome to my sister Aunty Add in the comments too! See, bloggings not that bad is it!